Maga's Evil Christian God is Unwanted Here
by R.E. Slater
It has become painfully obvious to me that the bible is the story of God "as the ancients had believed God to be" in their thoughts and imaginations. More so, we today are not alleviated of this soul task of imagining the kind of God which is present amongst us given this life's trials and challenges and ills. Especially now as American culture has become affectedly changed by maga Christianity.
In past recent posts it was flatly stated that the bible's cultural settings had affected ancient man's religious beliefs as much as our current cultural settings affect our beliefs about God and Christian duty today. As we look around ourselves trying to account for all we see and hear we see incongruencies to the Jesus faith we had been raised in to accept and believe by the very people who taught to us those sacred beliefs.
Now, we see everywhere across the American church landscape willfully evil men and women committing religious crimes in the lives of innocents, the poor, the oppressed, migrant, and despised. How can such Christian men and women who claim faith in Jesus commit such harm and malfiscience in this nation's societies while believing themselves to be good and holy? And what does this tell us of their evil God they follow?
"This was my challenge many years ago before maga-evangelicalism had worked itself out into it's presently espoused Hillsdale theology of God (the location of Maga's vaunted religious rulebook known as Project 2025 purporting itself to be the church's sole document of faith and dogma). I have come to adamantly reject maga's hedonistic God of yesteryear's unloving bible and today's maga church as highly errant in its doctrines and faith practices. In it's place I now present a theology of love which emphasises a loving God and loving bible and have taken the pains to reconstruct and replace my former covenant-based Reformed evangelical doctrine for a more thoroughly loving theology known as process theology."
However awful, inane, avowedly stubborn, unwise, inaccurate, and errant maga dogma is, it's view of the Christian God and bible does not relieve any of us of the ever present task of seeking for a God which can make sense of this life for us. This challenge also includes those deceived by maga indoctrination as well.
"Even as Israel's unloving God then - and the maga-church's unloving God now - has plainly shown to us --> the words and deeds of failed theologies of God and the resulting faith practices by Christian religionists <-- could not see the "forest for the trees" either then, nor now, for all the religious fervency they have espoused for God and godly living. Over the centuries ugly theologies like Calvinism have ruined the lives of sincere men and women even as today's horrendous Palestinian/Gaza policies by 21st century Israel - or Maga's Project 2025 - are presently doing again today."
Not surprisingly, Jesus had observed the same in his day even as modern (non-maga) theists are observing again today. For his laudable efforts, Jesus was shut up by public lies of his work and character and consequently murdered while today's preachers of love are similarly actively ignored and publicly denounced,,, all in the maga-God's name of injustice and evil.
"Today's people of God have the unenviable challenge of placing themselves squarely onto the pages of yesteryear's bible: 'That of challenging and rejecting all evil beliefs of the Christian God and Christian church as promoted, espoused, preached, and noised by the maga-church.' This same unenviable task was enacted by Jesus towards the Torahic religionists of his day ("Torahic" means relating to, or characteristic of, the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible)."
Our challenge then is to reject all evil beliefs of the maga-God and to imagine what a loving God can mean in all facets of this life lived now in the 21st century. Otherwise, there is but little choice to reject all Christian Gods and to abandon the Christian faith for something else other than God as the maga-Christian religion has made life more wretched than beautiful in its beliefs and practices.
Process belief flatly rejects evil men, evil faiths, and any evil Gods today's maga-Christian nations and religions demand we accept. In the former Christian faith as it was once taught it was unacceptable to reject love for evil. Moreover, it is both the firm belief and imagination of those of us who wish to see Love in this universe and it's God that we reject all errant interpretations of God and life in direct disregard and deliberate disagreement to the teachings of evil men and evil preachers of a bible teaching that an evil God is the way, truth, and the life. It isn't. Rather, they have misconstrued, lied, and misinterpreted a loving God for One that is evil and has given them permission to act evilly towards all those whom they chose to hate and not love.
"This isn't the Jesus way who taught Love is the New Law and that all faith laws are now superseded - that it was Israel's laws which mistaught God and God's ways."
The task then for today's true Christian prophets is to denounce unloving beliefs and acts while announcing that God is love in all the ways that love can be profound in our lives and into the worlds around us. It is a paradoxically true statement that "Loving theologies do not capture the hearts of unloving Christians" when daily denying God's love by acting unlovingly in the lives of those around us. Such Christians have deluded themselves, those around themselves, and even the God who hears their prayers:
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. - 1 John 1.8-10
Paul similarly says we have become as brass bells announcing our folly to the world:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal," highlighting the importance of love and genuine faith over outward displays. - 1 Cor 13.1
And Jesus says for all religious man's laws and legalisms they have missed the God of creation in his Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7):
5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. He said:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4 Blessed are those who mourn,for they will be comforted.5 Blessed are the meek,for they will inherit the earth.6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,for they will be filled.7 Blessed are the merciful,for they will be shown mercy.8 Blessed are the pure in heart,for they will see God.9 Blessed are the peacemakers,for they will be called children of God.10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
To conclude, the bible was yesterday's newspaper of evil men preaching an evil God. More broadly, it was the story of man searching for God and how this yearning for peace and beauty, construction and paradigm, might affect livelihoods and society. It seems we are doing the same today as poorly as when we first begun. That we are not the more enlightened but made the more brutish when holding unloving Gods of power and wrath. The challenge is to live love as ones God is love. Such a challenge is more than biblical... it is one that is learning to become concurrent with the universe and the God of the universe. Love then is the true bible that we are to read.
R.E. Slater
March 16, 2025
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AI Overview
The idea of "the Bible as yesterday's newspaper" suggests that the Bible, while containing timeless truths, can also be viewed as a record of events and teachings relevant to its historical context, much like a newspaper captures the news of a specific day.
Here's a breakdown of the concept:
Timeless Truths:
The Bible is often seen as containing universal moral principles and spiritual guidance that transcend time and culture.
Historical Context:
However, the Bible also reflects the specific historical, cultural, and social realities of the time in which it was written.
Newspaper Analogy:
Just as a newspaper reports on the events of a particular day, the Bible recounts stories, laws, and teachings relevant to its own time.
Relevance Today:
While the specific details of the Bible's historical context may differ from our own, the underlying principles and messages can still be relevant and applicable to our lives today.
Example:
For instance, the Old Testament laws about agriculture or social structures might not be directly applicable today, but the underlying principles of justice and compassion remain relevant.
Different Interpretations:
The way we interpret the Bible and its relevance to our lives can vary, and different people may draw different conclusions from its teachings.
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DISCERNMENT
by Dr. Abidan Shah
published in the newspaper Daily Dispatch
Henderson on September 9, 2020
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “discern” comes from the Latin combination of “dis,” which means “apart,” and “cernere,” which means “to sift.” Discernment is the ability to sift apart fact from fiction, truth from opinion, and horse sense from horse dung. Failure to exercise discernment can be costly.
The Bible is replete with examples of lack of discernment, beginning in the Old Testament: Adam and Eve failed to exercise discernment when they accepted the Serpent’s offer to taste the forbidden fruit; the people of Israel repeatedly lacked discernment in going after false gods; King Saul believed every untrue report against David and wasted time trying to execute the “man after God’s own heart;” and the Jewish remnant in the Babylonian exile could not discern that God still had “a future and a hope” for them.
In the New Testament, we continue to see a similar lack of discernment: the Pharisees and the scribes accused Jesus of being demon possessed instead of cross-checking his life and ministry with the Old Testament prophecies. Later, the Christians in Galatia were reprimanded by Paul for letting false teachers lead them astray from the true gospel.
But the Bible also gives plenty of examples of wise discernment: Joseph exercised discernment when he turned down the advances of Potiphar’s wife; Ruth chose to follow her mother-in-law Naomi rather than stay behind in Moab; and Jesus rejected the three offers of the Devil and chose to obey his Father.
Unfortunately, we are living in a time when a sense of discernment is harder to find than toilet paper in a pandemic! Individually and collectively, we are becoming more and more gullible to whatever is thrown our way. Gone are the days of conferring with credible authorities and checking the reliability of the sources. Nowadays, the more sensational and shocking the story, the more likely it is to circulate, regardless of any verification. This is clearly demonstrated in how people use social media. Many do not stop to consider the veracity of a social media post or the ramification of their re-post. Now, everything is about more likes and more shares with no concern for accuracy or outcome. The result of all this is fear, despair, hate, chaos, and destruction.
Our world is in desperate need of true discernment. I emphasize “true” because there is a false discernment that equates being hesitant, overly cautious, closed minded, and old fashioned with being discerning. Biblical discernment is about wise living. The Hebrew word for discernment (bîn) does not mean being stuck in time. It is about moving forward with godly wisdom. So also, the Greek word for discernment (krino) means to investigate, to determine, to compare, to consider, and to judge. It is time that God’s people exercise godly discernment in every area of our lives, especially in how we respond to the crisis facing our nation and the world. Sometimes, this may be easier said than done, as Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, once said, “Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.”
Let Paul’s prayer for the Philippians be ours as well -
“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:9-11)
